How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

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BamaSubdivision94
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How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by BamaSubdivision94 »

Before 1999, what's a rough estimate of the train frequency on the old B&O (i.e. the Willard and Garrett Subs)?

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by trnwatcher »

It always seemed spotty to me. I would guess 25-40 per day (not counting locals and MOW) depending on season. Grain trains and coal always flucuated more so than the regular traffic. Conrail was always busier but the B&O could get hopping epseically when they would send a fleet of trains on direction or the other through the single track sections.
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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by BamaSubdivision94 »

Hmmm... I was always under the assumption that the line always hosted 50-60 daily trains from the B&O to Chessie to CSX. But I never took into account that the Conrail split beefed up traffic on CSX to that number.

Could never imagine the B&O line in say, Fostoria seeing roughly the same amount of trains as the C&O or NKP.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by trnwatcher »

It might have been higher than i remember but after CSX announced their offer to buy Conrail they started putting the double track back from Crestline to Chicago. it took them a couple of years after the Conrail break up to get the traffic levels up to their pre-2008 levels. Back then they would run extra sections of trains too, none of these 12,000 foot land barges they run now.
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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by BamaSubdivision94 »

I see. Running longer trains saves money as opposed to running more trains is supposed to be a money saving measure, right? That would explain why the average CN train never seems to end.

Even before Conrail, was CSX running extra sections?

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by bdconrail29 »

BamaSubdivision94 wrote:Before 1999, what's a rough estimate of the train frequency on the old B&O (i.e. the Willard and Garrett Subs)?
West of Willard only about 12 each way. It was getting pretty bad. There wasn't anywhere near what volumes are today of course.
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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by trnwatcher »

BamaSubdivision94 wrote:Even before Conrail, was CSX running extra sections?
Yes but traffic levels determined this. Seeing they had daily jobs going to the various yards in Chicagoland, extras would be used if they had larger amounts of traffic going to a specific yard or if they had restrictions on train size.
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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

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12-24 just before the split date is a good number. In the early eighties you were lucky to see 6-10 west of Deshler. Just before the split CSX was running some cross corridor trains. Q300
Q301 come to mind Chicago to Richmond Virginia.
When these trains first started the names of Fast Flying Virginian and the Expeditor were used.
I can still hear when the Akron dispatcher would come on line. Two of them were quite the characters back in the good days of railroading. Mr Valentine would get on the line and say Vavoom Vavoom. Akron dispatcher calling the FFVA over.
Or Mr Corbin and Akron dispatcher to the Exterminator over. The B&O may not had the trains in the pre ConRail era but it was a very entertaining railroad to say the least. I wish I could hear Mr. Corbin sing to the operator at F tower again over the radio air waves.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by redside20 »

CSX like NS in the 80's and 90's had some interesting stuff. You had hot automotive traffic and racks coming off the Toledo side with a long distance GTW transfer train between Fostoria and Willard that featured GTW/CN/CV power R398EB/and Q399wb back to the GT connection at Lang Yard. You had the R or Q136 intermodal to Philadelphia with a block of reefers and tractors on the head end. You had a greater frequency of coke trains from the Pittsburgh area going to Chicago then. Q137 for a short time in the 90s, picked up an intermodal block from the Wheeling connection at Willard. I think JoJames probably has a better grasp on this line but was wasn't the Q382/383 pair the major premier freight between Cumberland and Chicago? Or was it R384?
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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by JoJames »

Q382 Q383 were the former CW-94 and CW-97 which operated direct to Proviso. Q238 Q239 the famous bomb trains from Texas via Chicago to Dow at Midland Michigan running once a week on Tuesadys were another unique train.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by CSX_CO »

trnwatcher wrote:It might have been higher than i remember but after CSX announced their offer to buy Conrail they started putting the double track back from Crestline to Chicago. it took them a couple of years after the Conrail break up to get the traffic levels up to their pre-2008 levels. Back then they would run extra sections of trains too, none of these 12,000 foot land barges they run now.
Ran plenty of monster trains after split. Mostly because they wouldn't run a train if there wasn't 100 cars or more. Railroad is comparatively flat too, so 150 cars with two SD40-2's and grind on them.

Can trains routinely were over 10,000ft. Especially the "slop" ones. I was on a couple Q164's that were up over 14,000'.
bdconrail29 wrote:
BamaSubdivision94 wrote:Before 1999, what's a rough estimate of the train frequency on the old B&O (i.e. the Willard and Garrett Subs)?
West of Willard only about 12 each way. It was getting pretty bad. There wasn't anywhere near what volumes are today of course.
Heard old heads say they'd come in on Monday, and not get back out till Friday. A fraction of the traffic on the west end then, compared to now.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by BamaSubdivision94 »

trnwatcher wrote:
BamaSubdivision94 wrote:Even before Conrail, was CSX running extra sections?
Yes but traffic levels determined this. Seeing they had daily jobs going to the various yards in Chicagoland, extras would be used if they had larger amounts of traffic going to a specific yard or if they had restrictions on train size.
Roger that.
bdconrail29 wrote:
BamaSubdivision94 wrote:Before 1999, what's a rough estimate of the train frequency on the old B&O (i.e. the Willard and Garrett Subs)?
West of Willard only about 12 each way. It was getting pretty bad. There wasn't anywhere near what volumes are today of course.
Geez... only 24 trains a day? That's crazy... how busy was the C&O and NKP at Fostoria? I'm guessing traffic on the C&O was heavier while that on the NKP is about the same as it is today?

At Deshler, how busy was the Toledo Sub?
JoJames wrote:12-24 just before the split date is a good number. In the early eighties you were lucky to see 6-10 west of Deshler. Just before the split CSX was running some cross corridor trains. Q300
Q301 come to mind Chicago to Richmond Virginia.
When these trains first started the names of Fast Flying Virginian and the Expeditor were used.
I can still hear when the Akron dispatcher would come on line. Two of them were quite the characters back in the good days of railroading. Mr Valentine would get on the line and say Vavoom Vavoom. Akron dispatcher calling the FFVA over.
Or Mr Corbin and Akron dispatcher to the Exterminator over. The B&O may not had the trains in the pre ConRail era but it was a very entertaining railroad to say the least. I wish I could hear Mr. Corbin sing to the operator at F tower again over the radio air waves.
Only 6-10 west of Deshler is too low to believe. It sounds like the Toledo Sub was busier with Queensgate opening up. Sounds like Cincinnati traffic was heavier than that bound for Chicago or the East Coast at the time.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by CSX_CO »

Conrail had a real strangle hold on east-west traffic from Chicago. So not that crazy to think at all. B&O across Indiana was always an overhead route, very little traffic originated on the line. Traffic had dropped enough by the 60's to pull sections of the double track. Compared to Conrail, NS and CSX got the scraps. CSX viewed the Conrail split as do or die.

Read "The Men Who Loved Trains" for a better picture.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by BL2-1843 »

Owned a camp lot at Yogi Bear Jellystone Park, Lot 188 right tight to the B&O where I had to look up" to see the trains, and just west of Willow Creek for 13 years between 1987 and 1999 and spend a lot of my summers down there. Many different trains came and went over this period. Bought this because in 1988 CSX had the line from Holland to Porter up for sale and had rerouted a lot of our Plymouth sub trains via Toledo and Garrett. 327-327 rain this way for awhile, and when CP added a second train (502-503) at the last second, even after crews were bid in to run the train on the Plymouth Sub, they yanked them off onto the B&O. Saw on average a little less than 20 in the early years, as many as 25 just prior to the Conrail takeover with NS. Was excited to watch the double track go back in by the campground, but disappointed when they put the new wye in at Willow Creek because a fair amount of trains now took the new wye in and out of Chicago instead of by the campground. Quite frustrating because I could hear them quite plainly but could not see them. All in all, had a good 13 years there as I logged daily trains there just like back home.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by JoJames »

BL2-1843 wrote:Owned a camp lot at Yogi Bear Jellystone Park, Lot 188 right tight to the B&O where I had to look up" to see the trains, and just west of Willow Creek for 13 years between 1987 and 1999 and spend a lot of my summers down there. Many different trains came and went over this period. Bought this because in 1988 CSX had the line from Holland to Porter up for sale and had rerouted a lot of our Plymouth sub trains via Toledo and Garrett. 327-327 rain this way for awhile, and when CP added a second train (502-503) at the last second, even after crews were bid in to run the train on the Plymouth Sub, they yanked them off onto the B&O. Saw on average a little less than 20 in the early years, as many as 25 just prior to the Conrail takeover with NS. Was excited to watch the double track go back in by the campground, but disappointed when they put the new wye in at Willow Creek because a fair amount of trains now took the new wye in and out of Chicago instead of by the campground. Quite frustrating because I could hear them quite plainly but could not see them. All in all, had a good 13 years there as I logged daily trains there just like back home.
I forgot about those 32? series trains. Had a switchtender on duty at Deshler to throw both set of switches till they rebuilt and moved the turnout on the Chicago side of the northwest transfer. When this was done the crossover to enter the main along with south siding switch on the Toledo side were all removed.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by MSchwiebert »

The 12 regular trains a day west of Deshler is entirely accurate. I lived in Fort Wayne from 1993-1996 and spent quite a bit of time up in Garrett and you had the 4 pig trains (135,136,137,138), general freight trains 381,382,383,384 that went through Deshler, 500,501 to/from Cincy via Deshler and 508 & 509 to Toledo (usually via Fostoria). "commodity" trains included a loaded coke train to Chicago from the east and the Wisconsin Electric Coal train (loads out of PA) and that was about it. It's easy to see why it was alternating double & single traffic from East Hamler westward (and it was rumored that Deshler to North Baltimore was next to get the single track treatment - but it didn't happen) - the traffic just wasn't there. As for Deshler, From Deshler southward was equally as busy as Deshler west, but Deshler north had was in the midst of it's second mothballing (from 1990 to 1997. First was from approximately 1981 to 1985) and saw no through traffic - at all. It was easy to see that when CSX announced it's intention to purchase Conrail, the B&O was on "thin ice" as the waterlevel route could have absorbed the B&O business with little difficulty. Fortunately the Conrail purchase became the Conrail split, and CSX needed a higher capacity route to Chicago than what the B&O was at the time. It was also fortunate that CSX chose to go "full in" and double track all the single track segments, as I had seen a few of the proposals where they would have retained some single track segments in Indiana.

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by JoJames »

Another unique train before the split was K188 and K189 ore trains. Usually running with Wisconsin Central Power and using the southwest transfer at Deshler

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by SousaKerry »

I grew up in Tiffin right between Fostoria and Willard. I would say 25 a day was a good average number. Remember at that time we still had Amtrak service first the Broadway Limited and then the Three Rivers. The GTW turns were always interesting always with a caboose, and 89 foot high cube boxes. I remember seeing faded red(pink) DT&I cars from my bus window, I gradgitated in 1994 so that would have been around 1990. With so much bridge traffic you never knew what to expect next and of coarse CSX's kaleidoscope of power from that era.

The track was mostly good but man did they have mud holes, the great black swamp did not give up easily and that heavy Ohio clay always crept back up between the ties. Yes the line was flat but not without some grades, Attica would kill an eastbound about once a month or so as inevitably an SD40 would konk out leaving one lone unit with 10,000 feet stalled on the hill. May times crews would know they were not going to make it and would waid West of Tiffin at Kellers for another train to come up behind and drop their train to shove them past Attica. Sometimes this would back them up all the way to Fostoria.
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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by BamaSubdivision94 »

CSX_CO wrote:Conrail had a real strangle hold on east-west traffic from Chicago. So not that crazy to think at all. B&O across Indiana was always an overhead route, very little traffic originated on the line. Traffic had dropped enough by the 60's to pull sections of the double track. Compared to Conrail, NS and CSX got the scraps. CSX viewed the Conrail split as do or die.

Read "The Men Who Loved Trains" for a better picture.
With CR having a near monopoly on Chicago-New England traffic, can the same be said for Penn Central and NYC before it?

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Re: How busy was the B&O before the Conrail split?

Unread post by cr6903 »

[/quote]With CR having a near monopoly on Chicago-New England traffic, can the same be said for Penn Central and NYC before it?[/quote]

Absolutely not. The Conrail of 1985 to 1999 was very different from the CR/PC/NYC+PRR before it West of Cleveland. Why?

Until about 1976, the traffic levels on Penn Central (both NYC Chicago Line and PRR Fort Wayne Line) and Erie Lackawanna from Chicago Eastward were suffering from years of deferred maintenance and loss of on-line traffic. On April 1, 1976, trains which previously ran an all-EL routing now moved to the PRR Fort Wayne line from South Street, Akron to Chicago. This added about 25-35 trains a day to it. The Fort Wayne of the Early Conrail saw a surge in traffic levels, while still a nasty piece of railroad, the NYC Chicago line stayed about the same as Pre-CR levels. In the early eighties (83ish) The Panhandle main was shut down to Chicago, adding more traffic to the Fort Wayne, but not too much as this was a recession time. The NYC still was about the same (I honestly don't know how many per day, I think somewhere in the 40 to 60 daily train count). When the Fort Wayne was downgraded, from Alliance West, almost all Ft wayne line traffic now went to Cleveland and West, around 1983-84. Now the NYC has had it's traffic just about doubled, split (Eastbound) at Cleveland for Buffalo or Pittsburgh.
Until Split-up, the traffic on the Chicago Line was basically like this-Cleveland being the point which trains went their separate ways, if anything almost evenly, or even a little more to Pittsburgh. During the intervening 22 years, the physical plant was rebuilt or downgraded, resulting in a good railroad for mainline traffic.

The CTC installed by the NYC in the 50's probably is the single most reason the NYC became the superior choice in what to do. The PRR had it in their labor agreements that a Dispatcher could not run a CTC machine-only an operator. Between Crestline and Ft Wayne alone, there were 13 towers, each requiring 5 operators. There's 80 guys on the payroll, and you haven't even turned a wheel!

The original Penn Central merger plan from 1961 even has the downgrading of the Fort Wayne line detailed in it.

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